


Round's On Me

by Iambic



Category: Marvel, X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, xmmficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:17:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two mutants walk into a bar. One turns to the other and asks, "So how did you end up working in a school?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round's On Me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for smirnoffmule at Livejournal, in the xmmficathon exchange. Their prompt was "Kurt, Logan, loser buys the drinks."

"It's your turn, elf," Logan said, slicing a claw through the label on his latest bottle and pulling the paper away.

"Fair is fair," Kurt replied, and put down his own bottle. He had gone through significantly fewer beers than Logan; his metabolism wasn't enhanced by a healing factor, and the amount it took to get him drunk would barely have given Logan a buzz. "It's not a nice story, though."

Logan snorted. "Didn't ask for a nice story. I asked for a real one."

Kurt's voice sounded like it was coming from far off. "When I was young," he said, "I traveled in a circus, where I performed tricks that astounded. I was the Amazing Nightcrawler. We spent our off-season in Munich, and I went to school. And then one day a man came in and told me that I was an abomination unto God. That because of my strange looks and my inhuman powers, I violated His creation." Kurt smiled when he said this. "He wanted to help. He told me things I could do that would change me back and remove my sin. I tried them. They did not work."

"The scars," Logan guessed, pointing a finger at where the lines whirled past the collar of Kurt's shirt and around his neck. "Was that one of the ways?"

"One of them," Kurt said, shrugging. "Not all of them were. Some I made later. But I knew I would have to ask help, because I could not absolve myself on my own. I left the circus. I was seventeen."

Logan drained his bottle, held it up until the bartender brought over another. She had grown accustomed to seeing mutants here since Logan had first walked in; when Kurt had entered she hadn't even blinked. "So then what?" Jeannie would've been compassionate, and the Professor would have been patient and empathetic. Logan wasn't any of that, but he had the idea that Kurt appreciated this.

"I lived in a church in Munich," Kurt said, "and then I moved on to a smaller town when the father said that I was frightening followers away. I didn't let them see me this time. And then one day they found me, asleep in a balcony. I had not been careful enough. They chased me into the street, waving sticks and guns and torches at me. I teleported to safety, but they continued to pursue me, and eventually caught up to me. That is when I earned the other lines." He traced a hand along a scar beneath his shirt, a swirl Logan could not place.

"What'd you do? Kill 'em all?"

Kurt nodded, surprisingly. Logan hadn't figured him for the type to actually go through with it and kill someone. "Not all. I fought back. I put my life against theirs and chose my own, and I am not sure how many of them died that night. I fled, all the way to the coast, and got a position on a ship to America." He shrugged again and drank down his beer, which was a sure sign the story was over. Logan smiled, very slightly. It was a pretty damn good story. He'd been expecting something a little less dramatic, but that was probably oversight on his part, because everything Kurt did was a little more dramatic than it had to be.

He was a good guy to have around in a pinch, though. "This round's on me," Logan said, and waved the bartender over for another beer for Kurt. "Good story."

"All of the rounds are on you," Kurt replied, grinning. "You lost, remember?"

"Yeah, sure," Logan said, but without the kind of growl he'd've used if Summers said something like that. But even with Jeannie aside, Summers was an annoying guy. Kurt... wasn't. Sure he was dramatic when he didn't need to be and liked to appear out of nowhere, and okay, he was a little more religious than anyone really had a right to be, but he was an interesting guy and not annoying at all.

"So what now?" Logan asked, after a moment. "Gonna stick around? Been lookin' for something myself, and I'm not sure either of us are gonna find what we're lookin' for at the school."

Kurt shrugged again. "Maybe not. But I don't think I will be looking for anything now." He looked over, out the window, to where rain had begun to fall against the windows. "I have no idea where I would go from here."

"I hear ya," Logan said.

"I have a feeling that what we're searching for isn't something in a specific place," Kurt continued. "After all, didn't you go to Alkali Lake looking for your past? What did you find there?"

Hints. Taunts. Nothing concrete. Nothing that had any use. Logan rolled his neck, heard joints pop, and took another swig. "Okay, I get what you mean."

"Maybe we've found something better here," Kurt said. "Looking backwards has never helped anyone so much as looking forwards."

Logan laughed. "Me, I like to look at things as they go by," he said. "No point planning ahead. Who the hell knows what's coming?"

"You have a point," Kurt said, dipping his head to the side, up and down. "I never expected to end up here." He set down his bottle, only halfway drunk, and scratched at the corner of the label. It was completely dark outside by now, and the crowd inside was still pretty small. They could probably stick around until closing time without any trouble -- not that Logan would've minded some trouble. It'd be great to have some trouble, if it was just him. Since Jeannie'd gone, he'd found that brawls were really the best medicine around. But beer with Kurt was probably a good second choice, and got him in less trouble with the Professor afterwards.

And beers with Kurt also meant he didn't get thrown out of every bar he went to. It would've been a problem if there wasn't anywhere he could just go for a drink where Summers wasn't.

Kurt was looking over at the antique jukebox in the corner, where some guy had just dropped a couple quarters to play some song Logan didn't know. He smiled again, nodded his head with the beat. Logan didn't think too much of the song, but it wasn't that bad – mostly boring.

"Game of darts?" he offered, after a while. Kurt grinned at him, teeth glittering white against dark blue.

"I did not realise you were so eager to pay for drinks next time as well," Kurt said.

"Nah," Logan replied. "You just got lucky last time. Ain't gonna happen again."

Kurt just laughed. "I wouldn't be too sure."


End file.
